You are NOT Responsible for Your Feelings

I was listening to the Stand To Reason podcast today, and Greg Koukl answered a question of a listener who said she had trouble trusting God to provide for her and had been told by some in her church that it meant she did not have saving faith.  Greg answered this wonderfully, and I linked to the podcast above so you can hear how he answered, but I think I would like to develop on the response to this.

First of all, his general answer was that having problems trusting God does not mean she isn't saved.  He said all believers struggle with trusting God and that, in fact, the very fact that she struggles with this is very good evidence that she has the Holy Spirit to convict her.

I completely agree, but I would like to look at this from a slightly different angle:

You are not not responsible for your feelings; you are responsible for how you respond to them.

This is a very difficult thing to get our heads around sometimes.  Our emotions feel so much like they are part of our conscious soul, but for the most part, our emotions are biochemical signals to our brain... We have very little control over them.

We learn in grade school about our five senses.  We have these different organs that sense the world around us and send signals to our brain that we interpret and use in decision making...  One of these is sight.  Is it a sin if we see something that tempts us?  (Assuming we didn't go looking for it.)  In the story of David and Bathsheba, had David seen her on the rooftop bathing and decided to turn around and not act on that temptation, would he have sinned by seeing her?  I'm fairly confident that all of us would answer "no."  Of course, those of us who know the story (Found in 2 Samuel chapter 11) know that David did sin, but he did so because he dwelt upon and acted upon the temptation.

Much like our 5 senses, our emotions are an input.  And like our senses, they can tempt us to sin.  Unfortunately, unlike our senses, we can't as easily escape our emotions.  We can close our eyes, we can plug our ears, and we can spit out food that offends us, but if we attempt to suppress an emotion, we often end up feeding it.

Anyone who has ever struggled with mental illness can attest to the fact that our emotions don't always reflect our actual desires.  I've dealt with anxiety, depression, and more, but one of the most eye opening events in my life was when I had a bad reaction to an antidepressant and experienced suicidal thoughts.  It only affected me briefly and I can tell you that I had absolutely no true desire to kill myself, but my feelings had gone rogue due to a biochemical reaction. 

It was after that point that I started to understand that these emotions were simply an input.  They didn't define me, they were simply a signal that I had no control over.  My reaction to them was what I was responsible for. It brought me back to the words of Christ in the Gospel of Mark:

"There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”   -- Mark 7:15

To bring this back to the original question this started with, I'm fairly certain when somebody says they struggle with trusting God, they aren't usually talking about the choice to trust, they are talking about the feeling of trust.  If I ever go under the knife, I have to choose to trust my surgeon, but I will probably still feel scared.  There is a very important distinction there, and I don't know if it gets hit on often in church because it isn't pleasant to think about. 

Unfortunately, we live in a culture where we are constantly bombarded with the notion of "Follow your heart."  (A very unwise bit of advice for any of us.)  This is a culture that focuses more on the feeling of love than the act of love.  We can see the results of this mindset by looking at divorce statistics...

I guess the best conclusion I can bring this to is this:  If you struggle with anxiety, it doesn't mean you don't trust God.  If you struggle with depression, it doesn't mean you can't have joy.

 Job cried out to God in Job chapter 30 and he absolutely laid out his heart.  He felt God had abandoned him and told God as much in his prayer saying, "I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me. You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you persecute me," (Job 30:20-21) but when the book comes to a close, God upholds Job and even says that Job spoke rightly. This doesn't mean Job was right, as God had not turned cruel, but God considered nothing Job had said to be sinful.

Even Christ was overwhelmed in Gethsemane saying, "My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death," (Mark 14:34) but we know that Christ's feelings were certainly not sinful. 

Your emotions are inputs, and do not define you any more than your 5 senses do.  You can only be responsible for how you choose to respond to your emotions.  And like Job, sometimes the best response is to cry out to God and let Him know the burdens of our heart.

The Veil of the Temple

I usually like to dive into longer passages of scripture and reference other passages as support, but for today's post, I'm going to center on a short phrase in the Gospels, but one with great meaning:
The account of the Crucifixion in Matthew states "And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom."  It says this amidst describing an earthquake, so one might miss the significance of this event.

***Context Warning***
At this point I would like to put my fallibility disclaimer up. I generally like to adhere to Greg Koukl's wise words "Never read a bible verse." This meaning that all scripture needs to be read in context of the passage because the verse numbering is a relatively modern development and the writers did NOT intend individual verses to be read in a vacuum.  That said, this post is largely topical in nature so not a lot of context is included surrounding each passage.  I made the decision to include a greater number of shorter passages rather than a lesser number of longer ones in order to show a larger arc within scripture as a whole.  
I would like to think that my readings of these passages are true to their context. I have read them in context myself and am confident in my use of them, but as a fallible human being, I encourage anyone reading this to investigate my conclusions by reading the passages in full context.

To do this passage justice let's look back to the earliest incarnation of the Temple, the Tabernacle which was the portable worship center that the Hebrews built and carried with them in the desert.  The Tabernacle was extremely important to the Jews and it's design and construction was described in great detail in Exodus 36-39.  The significance of this was directly due to the presence of God.

Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the LORD was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys.
-- Exodus 40:34-38

God himself filled the Tabernacle as a cloud by day and fire by night.  His presence was so powerful that even Moses was not able to enter.  It was so powerful that those who entered without permission died.

Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, contrary to his command. So fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Moses then said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord spoke of when he said:“‘Among those who approach me    I will be proved holy;in the sight of all the people    I will be honored.’”Aaron remained silent.  -- Leviticus 10:1-3

And because of this, God had to set very specific rules for entering the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle:

The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord and died, and the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the ark, so that he may not die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. But in this way Aaron shall come into the Holy Place: with a bull from the herd for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering.  -- Leviticus 16:1-3

There was a lot involved in this and it is explained in detail in Leviticus, but the short version is that only the High Priest could enter and only on the Day of Atonement when he offered the sacrifices to atone for Israel's sins.

So up until this point we've seen how powerful the presence of God was and how the Hebrews were instructed to deal with his presence.  Also we've seen the separation between God and man being a real physical barrier. A curtain which protected the people from the Holy presence of God's Spirit.

Now this sentence in Matthew holds more significance:

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.
-- Matthew 27:50-51

The curtain was torn from top to bottom.  There was no longer a barrier between God and His people.  This statement sums up the Gospel beautifully when understood in context.  "The curtain in the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom," is a physical image with a very deep spiritual significance:

Where once we were separated from God due to our impurities, Christ's sacrifice has enabled us to enter his presence.

Beyond that, we no longer need an earthly Priest to offer atonement for us.

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.-- Hebrews 4:14-16

I guess the next question becomes, where does God's Spirit, this great and powerful presence, dwell now?

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
-- Acts 2:1-4

The Holy Spirit descended among the believers on the day of Pentecost.  It filled them in much the same way we saw his presence descend upon the Tabernacle.  Paul also draws this connection in Corinthians:

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.--1 Corinthians 6:19-20

The Holy of Holies does not need its curtain because we have become the Temples of the Holy Spirit.  The same spirit which consumed the Sons of Aaron because they approached unworthy now inhabits those who follow Christ as their High Priest.  Paul expands upon this in his letter to the Romans:

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.--Romans 8:11

So the Spirit that lives in us is the same Spirit that consumed the sons of Aaron, AND it is the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead!  This is not something to take lightly.  People often use phrases like "It's not a religion, it's a relationship," or "Jesus is my best friend," which are not necessarily incorrect statements, but we can all too often lose the reverence for God.  We become complacent to sin in our lives and take the grace of God for granted.  That passage in 1 Corinthians, in context, was reminding believers not to take sexuality lightly.  That's something I think our current society tends to do.  Paul had to remind the church in Rome not to take sin lightly as well:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.-- Romans 6:1-4

Keep in mind, I'm not talking about legalism.  I'm not saying anybody needs to live a perfect sinless life. I'm saying we need to view God with the same level of reverence as the Israelites, at their best, viewed him and not take for granted the freedom we have in Christ to commune with the spirit of God and not be consumed.